The conventional progressive wisdom is that the Trump Administration will be bad for cities and for transit users. But in recent decades, a unified Republican government has been better for public transit than a divided government.

An efficient and equitable transport system must be diverse to serve diverse travel demands. Planners need better tools to quantify and communicate the benefits of walking, cycling and public transit to sometimes skeptical decision makers.

United Nations

Writing for Fortune magazine, David Morris examines the influence of the Anti-Agenda 21 movement, especially one of the movement's figureheads, Rosa Koire, who wrote the book "Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21."

In September, 2011 the above title read two million. Figures from both years are based on reports from the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency. Is air quality getting worse, or are more deaths being attributed to air pollution?

With the target dates for the Millennium Development Goals set for 2015, the United Nations has begun to create a new set "Sustainable Development Goals." Some are calling for the new goals to include an urban focus.

Agenda 21, a nonbinding United Nations resolution signed in 1992 by 170 world leaders, was developed to encourage "sustainable development." Now it’s a political talking point that kills planning efforts all over the country.

The former three-term New York City mayor, already president of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group has been appointed to a special United Nations envoy position on cities and climate change by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"The United Nations has set two huge energy-related goals for the coming century," says Brad Plumer. While bringing electricity to 1.3 billion people without it and curtailing fossil fuel use seem to be at odds, the U.N. has a plan to achieve both.

Annual United Nations climate change negotiations concluded in Doha over the weekend with an agreement to extend the "increasingly ineffective" Kyoto Protocol a few years, while pushing off a more ambitious replacement agreement.

World climate talks convened in oil and gas-rich Qatar on Monday, and many eyes have turned to the U.S. Will it be receptive to a climate treaty in light of the devastation reaped on the Northeast by Superstorm Sandy? Can the world agree to a treaty?

Announced at a recent United Nations summit on biodiversity, India’s pledge of $50 million to assist developing countries with conservation efforts marks a significant shift in the way environmental protection is funded worldwide.

Two planners with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reveal how they use GIS to coordinate their efforts, using the recent tsunami and earthquake in Japan as an example.

The U.N.'s population division has increased their world population projection, previously set to peak at mid-century at 9 billion. Now they say it will continue growing to reach 10.1 billion by 2100, with Africa tripling its numbers.

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